Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Pursuit of Life

I'm lying to myself and everyone else if I try to say this journey is about anyone but me. A jack-of-all-trades, I'm that person who has tried many things leading to the same conclusion; this is not the word to describe me. The problem is, I know what I want to do, and I think I always have, but I don't seem to know how.

The day-to-day mundane life of a repiticious job is not for me. Sitting idly makes me miserable, which in turn makes sharing my company annoying for most people. I'm honestly just not happy. Not in this life and clearly not in my previous life either, but I'm the only one who can fix it. Trying to find happiness in another person is a mistake I'm done making.

I've always given myself to other people; tried to fill in the void other people have. In truth, the void is within myself. Maybe I've always known, maybe I'm just now figuring it out; I'm not sure.

It doesn't take away from the love I have for the people in my life, but it does give me more of an understanding of what I need to do for myself. Having two kids in tow makes everything a little more difficult to obtain, but nothing is impossible if you want it bad enough.

I was seven or eight the first time I remember seeing the mountains; the Smokie Mountains of Tennessee. I thought, 'Someday I want to live here.' I was very lucky to get a chance to travel so much as a child. Because my parents divorced when I was 11, I enjoyed two vacations a year. I realize as an adult, I don't want to live in Tennessee. What I really want is to travel the world. Where I live doesn't matter, as long as I don't become idle.

I've been stuck in idle the majority of my adult life, and I'm tired of it. It's time to do something about it.

Leaving my 'stuff' behind helped me cut ties from material possessions. I don't need any of it. Everything I have makes me comfortable, but at the end of the day, it doesn't make me happy, and being happy is more important than having stuff.

Several years ago, after both my husband and I had lost our jobs, we spent months researching how to move away and survive the world as minimalists with children. We had a fantastic plan laid out that only we knew about, and then he got his dream job working for the bookstore. It changed everything. Looking back, I wish we would have stayed the course. I wonder how things would have turned out if we had? I can't continue living a life of what ifs. They keep me up at night, and keep my mind wandering during the day.

There is an answer to all this mindlessness. I intend to do something about it. It makes me sad that I don't have a partner to share it with, but that was a choice I made and I have to live with it. I am not one, I am three, so I'm not alone. I'm going to give these kids a different kind of chance. There is a world out there waiting to be discovered. Now is the time to get busy living. I'm tired of watching my life pass me by. There is more to it than just this.